


The Stars That Whisper

by ink_like_starlight



Category: Original - Fandom
Genre: Original work - Freeform, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 10:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19196830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ink_like_starlight/pseuds/ink_like_starlight
Summary: An original piece written for my university class about two sisters and fallen stars





	The Stars That Whisper

On the third night of continuous storms that kept families within their cramped village homes and flooded their fields, Angelica offered to tell her younger sister a story to help her sleep. 

Angelica’s voice was softly genuine, different from the terse words exchanged between their parents at the breakfast table that gloomy morning. “When the world is not so sad, when the sky does not wail, sometimes you can hear the stars that whisper.” 

Eliza, with her large brown eyes that, despite Angelica’s best efforts, have seen more than any child deserved to see, watched Angelica expectantly. “What do they say?”

“I think,” she cocked her head to the side, as if she could hear them over the fat drops of rain against their roof, “they’re saying it’s time for little girls to go to sleep!” At fourteen, Angelica knew she wasn’t much bigger than Eliza, was  _ barely _ less of a child, but in every sense except physical, Angelica was as much of a mother to Eliza as she would ever have. 

“But that wasn’t even a real story,” protested Eliza. 

A small smile pulled up the corner of her lips. “I guess you got me there. Okay, how about a short,  _ short _ story?” 

Eliza nodded enthusiastically, snuggling further into the bed they shared.

Propped up on one elbow, Angelica began. “Up in the night sky, it’s really very quiet. So quiet that sometimes we can hear the stars that whisper. They speak and sing and rest because speaking and singing is really very tiring. But sometimes, when the stars are resting, they fall asleep.” Angelica watched Eliza’s lashes flutter as she grew tired as well. “And when they fall asleep, they fall down to earth, to us, to a beautiful forest where the stars learn to look like the creatures they see. Have you ever seen a fox shaped star romping in the forest, Eliza?”

She gave a sleepy shake of her head.

“When they fall to the forest, even when they wake up, it’s hard to go back into the sky because it’s really very far away. And they can’t leave the forest because it’s surrounded by a magical, invisible wall. There’s only one door, a small gate, covered in glowing blue flowers and painted constellations. But the stars can’t open it. So they stay in the forest with its creatures and they still speak and sing and now instead of resting they cry.” A pause. “They can’t see their friends anymore.” 

At this point, Eliza had stopped listening, long lost to the lull of her dreams. Angelica loosed a shaky breath, sliding out of bed. Prowling past the voices arguing down the hall, she slipped out the front door and into the cold. 

~

The next morning held no rain. Sea and sky were painted the same murky grey. Mud sucked on their boots as they strolled to the market, Eliza swinging a small bamboo basket, Angelica fingering the few coins they had to spend today. The embossed starbursts on the coins pressed into the pads of her fingers.

The mud soon gave way to worn cobbled streets as the pair entered the village square, filled with vendors yelling their wares of steamed meat buns, whole smoked ducks, roasted chestnuts, green onion pancakes, pork dumplings, and glazed egg tarts. Angelica stood amongst the sights and sounds and smells, soaking them in and committing them to memory.

At Eliza’s request, Angelica forfeited a copper coin for a meat bun, handing the savory parcel down to Eliza. They now had only four more copper coins and a single silver coin left.

The vendor, an elderly woman who Angelica knew to have four adult children and a husband who made slippers, asked, “How is your family, Child?”

Angelica gave a tired smile, and said, “Same as always.” 

The vendor  _ humph _ ed. With a deeply creviced hand, she lifted one of the woven covers concealing her buns, releasing a puff of steam, and prodded one of the pillowy buns. “Bah, this one is overcooked!” She wrapped it quickly and shoved it into Angelica’s hands. 

“Oh, no, please, you know we can’t pay--”

“What, you think I would sell an overcooked bun? Get out of here! And don’t come back if you plan to keep insulting me like that!” The vendor shooed them off with a wave of her hand. A pitying look that softened her gaze kept Angelica for protesting again. She bowed her head in thanks and led Eliza to the produce stalls. 

~

It rained again that night. The pair had returned before dusk to a quiet house. Air heavy with static and unspoken thoughts, Angelica silently prepared dinner with their scarce vegetables and rice, wishing she could have cooked something better for Eliza. They were just sitting down to eat when the storm entered their home in the form of anger. 

Their father, drenched and drunk, off of what money Angelica didn’t know, ripped into the still air like a beast unleashed. 

“Get under the table,” Angelica ordered immediately, expectantly. Eliza fearfully obliged. “When I tell you to, run outside and sit in the chicken coop until I come get you okay?” Those last words cracked into a higher octave, but held steady. 

Without waiting for an answer, Angelica stepped into her father’s line of sight. 

Staggering, one hand gripping a bottle, he loudly slurred, “Where’s your mother?”

Gone. When they’d returned, her clothes had been torn from their hangers in a hurry, bags and money missing. Angelica said, voice level, heart hammering, “In the bedroom.” 

Their father grunted in acknowledgement and lurched into the hall leading to the empty room, alcohol spilling. Behind her back, Angelica waved a frantic hand. Eliza noticed, scurrying out from under the dining table. They shared one final, solid, look. 

_ I love you _ , Angelica mouthed. 

“ _ Where is she? _ ” their father roared just as Eliza slipped out the door. 

Angelica, sliding the familiar kitchen knife into her icy palm, turned and faced their father alone. 

~

The sound of distantly shattering glass greeted Eliza like a thunderclap. Sitting among the chickens, she knew Angelica wouldn’t be coming to get her. She drew her knees in tighter against her chest and began to weep. 

~

It must have been at least an hour of sitting and shivering and sobbing in the wet darkness before Eliza raised her face from where it was buried in her arms and was greeted by the stare of a red fox. She startled. When it didn’t move, she relaxed slightly.

“Are you here to steal a chicken?” she asked weakly. 

The fox only stood and walked out of the coop, pausing only once to look back at Eliza to make sure she followed. They walked past the small house. Eliza didn’t turn to look into the doorway, didn’t see the pieces of broken bottle, didn’t see her sister, didn’t see the blood.

They walked through the empty village square, past star-shaped lanterns with dying candle light, past the village limits, past the settled farmland, past the furthest point Eliza had ever traveled from her home. The fox would occasionally stop and glance back, and once, Eliza caught a white ember shining in its eyes, but it was gone so quickly, she thought she imagined it. She asked multiple times where they were going, as if the fox could understand her, or speak a response. But it never did, just kept walking. They walked through the night, no moon or stars to guide them. Though, strangely, Eliza never lost sight of the fox, as if it held some light of its own. 

As exhaustion dragged her feet and weighed down her head, a soft blue glow in the distance caught her eyes. Flowers, only a few blooms, sprouting at the feet of a wooden gate so overgrown by the forest on the other side, she would have missed it. A memory tugged at the back of her mind as she approached and placed her hand on the smooth, damp wood, propped slightly ajar with a stone, with paint too faded to make out. The gate opened without resistance. 

The forest was not as dark as Eliza would have expected. In fact, it was dotted with glowing blossoms, mushrooms, fireflies, and other unidentified tinkling little lights. The fox, too, seemed brighter within the borders of this world. 

A rabbit that held the same glow as the fox entered her path. And it spoke. “Welcome to the Forest of the Fallen, Eliza.” 

“You can speak. And you know my name?” 

The rabbit tilted its head. “We are magical beings descended from the sky, Eliza. We have much power and much knowledge.”

She paused. “Then give me my sister back.” 

The rabbit looked away, as if unable to meet her eyes, and another piece of her heart crumbled. “As much as we share your wish, we cannot bring Angelica back.”

In a voice wiser than her age, Eliza said,“Then there is nothing your magic can do for me.” 

A heavy silence filled the air, as if the forest was holding its breath. “We wish to help in other ways,” said the rabbit quietly.

“Who is ‘we’?” 

In response, all manner of creatures emerged from behind trees, from inside brush, dropping from the canopy above, landing on branches, all sharing the same glow. 

The rabbit spoke again. “We are the Fallen. Your sister was very kind to us whenever she visited.” The other animals nodded. “In return, we shared with her the knowledge of her fate, of tonight. And she pleaded with us to take care of you. She even left the gate open so we could lead you here.” 

So this is where Angelica went when she occasionally slipped out of bed in the middle of the night, when she thought Eliza was deeply asleep. Eliza had many questions, but the events of the night, her body and her sorrow, drew her towards a small, dry clearing where she slept until morning. 

~

The stars moved away from her, except Vulpecula, who favored the form of a fox. She sat watch. 

“They’re the same,” Lepus, the rabbit, whispered solemnly. 

They did looked alike, Angelica and her sister. They shared the same black hair and warm brown eyes, visible even through the red rimming left as evidence of Eliza’s tears. Her clothes were torn and muddy and wet, but bloodless. The loss of her sister had nevertheless damaged her, if not physically, then inside. 

They knew of the stories Angelica told of them, that they sang songs, and peacefully floated down to earth. She had not shared the facts of their gruesome battles in the sky, not of the reality that the Forest of the Fallen was in fact a graveyard. It was as if Angelica had known that these war stories of bravery and sacrifice would inspire her to make the same sacrifice for Eliza. As if she feared that Eliza would try and stand beside her and perish as well. 

The Fallen achieved the same conclusion too late to even try and save Angelica, the only one who had ever opened the gate for them, allowed them a breath of freedom outside the forest, even if they were bound by spirit and by death to always return before dawn. 

They had done their mourning the night before, after they said their final farewells. Angelica had left the forest almost joyfully. Not a single frown or glimmer in her eyes revealed she knew she would die the next day. But they all knew. They’d armed her with battle knowledge and even a kitchen knife dropped by a passing traveler, knowing it would make no difference in the end. Only after her departure did it occur to anyone that they might have led Angelica to her fate with their stories.

The only thing they could do now was fulfill Angelica’s last wish, to watch over her sister. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, friends! Sorry I haven't posted, like at all. School, the usual excuses. BUT I just finished my last final so it's officially summer for me. I hope to post more!
> 
> Also, for anyone wondering, yes I know Angelica and Eliza aren't Asian names to match the Asian food references but I like the sisterly relationship in Alexander Hamilton (the play) and those were their names so.


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